It seems to me that the troubling, most contentious, issues we see blossom and fade in GD are ones where participants have experienced related pain and suffering personally.

I am not speaking of any topic in particular here if you were reading in guns, or gender, or race, or whatever. The thing I'm trying to get at, and probably won't do justice to, is once I've been burned by a thing it's really hard not react in an emotional state when someone brings up the damned thing. Makes it hard to hear what they mean at times. Even more so when it relates to something that is nuanced and painted with a broad brush.

So maybe, just maybe we can be a little less on edge? Maybe we can trim our broad brushes down to maybe a sash brush? When you paint with the broad brush it can be painful to those with prior pain related to the subject. Once that pain surfaces, it's difficult not to respond in kind.

If we could carry that into the new year, then I'm sure GD would suck a little less.

"The generation of random numbers is too important to be left to chance."
- Robert R. Coveyou, Oak Ridge National Laboratory

To all you people who said I was crazy that the NSA could have a back door into encryption, my inference back in July is now confirmed.

My mistake back then was I thought Cisco was compromised and it now turns out that RSA itself is compromised. How was it compromised? A subtle flaw in the random number generation that I suspect allows the private key to be deduced from the public key.

This would be funny if it wasn't so sickening.

So to all who said I was nuts, who hassled me for attending the anti-NSA rally, it's your turn to be mocked. Unless you want to stand up and say Sorry, Hoot I guess you did know a little about this tech stuff.

A condition symbiotic with affluenza causing actions that are not in a person's self interest, thus keeping them poor.

Symptoms:

Thinking that higher taxes on the affluenzant will hurt the Gulliblemic.

Confusing the debt ceiling with a limit on how much the government can spend.

Thinking Medicare and Social Security are not government programs or are causing the deficit.

Thinking that shutting the Federal Government is a good thing.

Watching Fox News other than for comedic effect.


Oddly, it seem the spelling and grammar centers of the brain are also affected.


Attending rallies with 1 port-a-john for every other protestor.

Confusion between religious law and Federal Law.

An extreme case:



There are probably many more I have missed.

First, please do not hotlink these photos outside of this thread. If you do, I reserve the right to make you look silly.

I went to the Stop Watching Us rally yesterday and came home bummed about the turnout which was about 1000 people by my own estimation.

It looks larger in the video:


When I got home last night about 8 or so, I'm greeted on DU by this thread. It's hard not to respond in kind here, but more on that guy later.

Photos, captions and commentary:


I arrived at Union Station just as the march was leaving.



The cops were informing the driver of this van that they can't simply circle the pickup lanes indefinitely.

Having missed the main march, I walked a more direct route to the Capitol reflecting pool and got some photos of the arrival:










The 4th on a banner


A photo of some of the crowd with the Capitol in the background.

Then on to signs...


A prior President weighs in.


Many (including me) were showing support for Ed Snowden.


Blowback, indeed.


A rare sight on DU, the first posted photo of Hoot with a bonus you get to see his pal too.


This guy was pretty cool to talk to. I mentioned that I was a little disappointed with the turnout, and he said it's cool dude, you're here, I'm here, this is early in the fight.


I like the framing here with the dish and the shrouded Washington Monument. Good message too!


Succinct and to the point!


I didn't have the heart to correct his spelling.


He did ok on the flip side, and really had a pretty good elevator speech.


This guy has it about right!


This guy had a long history of being harassed.


There were a few variations on this theme.

Then there was this guy, who according to some here on DU, apparently invalidated everything that this rally was about and I suppose I'm supposed to retire in shame or something:


Note the wide berth people are giving this small group of LeRouchies whom I laughed at many times in Farragut Square for holding the same sign.

All in all I was disappointed with the turnout, but the apathy I saw here leading up to the event was reflected, I suppose. I am impressed that such a broad coalition came together and I encourage everyone to call congress right fucking now and ask your rep to cosponsor H.R.2818!

Maybe I should have dressed for the occasion:

Is that all this havoc wreaked by the Koch fueled TeaBaggers apparently has been done legally.

Unless and until the DOJ, or the Senate conducts an investigation into the collusion of funding organizations threatening to support primary candidates and actually discovers something illegal, we are just screwed.

They worked the system into a position of incredible leverage. All I can think of is they are fomenting an environment conducive to rioting. They are literally taking food from the mouths of the people, which historically has never ended well, and now they are in congress crowing their achievements.

The House has the authority of removing members, but I don't see how that maneuver could work with the current alignment. Even if you could convince enough moderate R reps to go for it, could it even be brought to the floor? Is is a privileged issue?

The only thing I'm pretty certain of at this point is that this will not end well.

42: Number of votes conducted to Repeal Obamacare.

18: Number of requests for budget conference nominees refused by the House.

6: Number of votes in the house to micromanage funding via CR. Actually there are more, but Thomas is behind due to the shutdown.

217: Number of aye votes for a clean CR.

2: Number of people at the root of this mess, waiting for the orange harvest report before they make their move.

BTW, If anyone is guilty of Sedition, it would be those 2 guys. They gained their influence the old fashioned way: They bought it.

October 26th, 2013 in Washington, D.C.
A Rally Against Mass Surveillance



Folks, this is the real deal. We need a million or more in DC to shut the surveillance state down. The names in the coalition are venerable: ACLU, EFF, ALA (Yes! Don't Fuck With Librarians!) and others. Including FreedomWorks which is a strange bedfellow indeed.

A rally against mass surveillance



Plan now and please keep this kicked for awareness.

Bear with me here a minute, I think it's important.

We know from Andrea Mitchell's interview of Clapper that it is not just metadata that is being slurped up by the NSA. How much is held remains to be proven, but at this point we know with certainty there is some call content being stored for future reference.

The relevant bits of the interview:




I Still am astounded at the notion of collection he has. I don't think that word means what he thinks it means, he has confirmed that someone somewhere has call content collected(my definition) waiting to be "collected"his definition).

How on earth this scheme doesn't run afoul of wiretap laws is beyond me. Maybe the secret warrant covers it, but where is the probable cause to precollect everything?



BTW, That's really odd that it wasn't against the law for cops to listen in. Do we need a privacy amendment? Sorry, It continues...




Can someone please explain to me how this NSA Slurp and Burp program is legal? Or is that reason a State Secret?

You're probably thinking WTF is Slurp and Burp?

It's my pet name for the practice the NSA has fallen into where they grab everything and store it for future reference. That's the slurp part and the future reference is the burp part.

The Burp when as Clapper euphemised your book is opened. Oh, and he also confirmed that it's not just phone metadata, it is also the call content.

Even the dude who wrote the Patriot Act abomination said that's is not what he intended in the law.

Stop the Slurp and Burp. Tell that exact phrase to your friendly congressional staffer. Tell them to dismantle it now.